Board changes focus of SSD research

6 Aug. 2014

The NAID Board of Directors has officially shuttered the association’s research project about the efficacy of solid state device (SSD) sanitization.

While the initiative received considerable support from the data erasure community, the researcher became unavailable unexpectedly in January. Subsequent efforts to locate similarly qualified researchers proved fruitless. In the meantime, it also became apparent that SSD storage architecture was evolving so quickly that the research results would have had questionable value.

According to NAID President Chris Isabell, the association will refocus its research. Earlier this week, the NAID Board of Directors approved funding of another research project.

“We feel we can bring more attention to the issue of proper data destruction by determining the extent to which data remains on secondhand devices in the secondhand market,” said Isabell. “NAID research on second hand hard drives in Australia last year got the attention of consumers and policy makers. We see something similar research in North America in the coming months.”